Locating Missing and Exploited Children with Artificial Intelligence

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Analytics Luminary: Michelle DeLaune, of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

AI Luminary Video: Michelle DeLaune, Senior VP/COO of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, describes the resource challenges in processing and extracting intelligence from the volume of missing child reports it receives. At the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, we operate the CyberTipline, which is a reporting mechanism for people to report incidents of child sexual exploitation. This year alone, we've seen over eight million reports regarding children who are being sexually abused and images of child pornography that are circulating online. We have 25 analysts. There’s no way they're going to be able to get through eight million reports. We need to be able to take those reports in, identify where on earth they were actually originating from, and make those reports available to the appropriate law enforcement agency. Right now, we're doing it. We're doing it well, as well as humans can, but it's very manual, and this is something where we're hoping to be able to augment and leverage the technology in order to do what — what the humans right now are doing. And, quite frankly, with the volume growing as it is, doubling every year, it's not going to be sustainable as is. We get a lot of feedback from law enforcement agencies who are the recipients of our information, who are saying, "This is really great, thank you for all of this, but we're drowning. We're drowning in the amount of data that you're providing to us." Artificial intelligence will help us augment the efforts of our analysts, who are looking for missing and exploited children. What Intel is helping us do is really take it to the next level and optimize the different standalone tools that we're currently using in order to do more, do better, do faster to protect children. What needs to happen is AI being used in such a way that it's — it's identifying the — the clues, the connections and the prioritization of these leads. So we very much look at this as our responsibility and appreciate the efforts of Intel to help us live up to that responsibility to make these reports better, to make them smarter, to be able to prioritize them which in the end just protects more kids. To learn more, visit http://www.intel.com/AI or http://www.missingkids.com